One Foot Before The Other
Turner Frank Lyrics

On the very day I die
From the moment I die

The very last of my desires
The final wish I have

Is that you take my broken body
For you to take my damaged body

And commit it to the fire
And burn it completely

And then when the fire is finished
After the flames have subsided

Scrape the ashes in a tin
Place the ashes in a container

Take them down to London's drinking reservoirs
Carry them to the water supply in London

And throw them in
And release them

And then specks infinitesimal of my mortal remains
Then small particles of my physical body

Will slide down seven million throats and into seven million veins
Will enter the bodies of seven million people

And I will creep through their capillaries to the marrow of their bones
I will infiltrate their bones via their capillaries

And they will wake to bright new mornings and then wordlessly they'll know
They will awaken to a new day and instinctively realize

That I remain
That I still exist

I am remembered
I am not forgotten

So these seven million innocents
Therefore, these seven million individuals

They will have me in their blood
Will carry a part of me in their circulatory system

And when they die they'll burn their bodies
And when they pass away they will be cremated

Or be buried in the mud
Or interred in the earth

And I will spread through streams and rivers like a virus through a host
I will proliferate in waterways like an infectious agent

From the hamlets to the cities from the rivers to the coast
Traveling from small townships to populated urban areas, and from water sources to sea shores

And from there into the channel across the great Atlantic Ocean
And navigate towards the English Channel and across the vast Atlantic Ocean

And ever onwards to the new world
And continue onward to the new continent

Through the waters gentle motions
Carried by the subtle movements of ocean currents

Until parts of me are part of every land mass every sea
Until some of my physical matter is dispersed across every continent and ocean waters

In the rain, up on your crops and in the very air you breath
Existing in precipitation, on agricultural produce, and in the atmosphere that you inhale

I'm not convinced of the existence of these things that don't exist
I am skeptical of the reality of things that have no concrete evidence

Yeah by Jewish boys with big ideas and scratches on their wrists
Created by ambitious Jewish men with dreams and bodily injuries

By a loving or a vengeful God
By a benevolent or malevolent deity

Or one who condescends
Or one who looks down on humanity

Who'll wash his hands down in the mire among the misery of men
Who will be complicit in the suffering of humanity

Or by ever turning circles hanging timeless in the sky
Or by the ongoing cycles of orbiting spheres enduring indefinitely above the earth

Like a dream catcher distracting from the fact you're gonna die
Serving as a temporary distraction from the inevitability of mortality

But I place one foot before the other
Nonetheless, I proceed one step at a time

Confident because
With assurance that

I know that everything we are right now is everything that was
I understand that our present selves are comprised of the past

That Watt Tyler, Woody Guthrie, Dostoevsky and Davy Jones
That historical figures such as Watt Tyler, Woody Guthrie, Dostoevsky, and Davy Jones

Are all dissolved into the ether and have crept into my bones
Have all dissipated into nothingness and have become a part of who I am

And all the cells in all the lines upon the backs of both my hands
And every individual cell found in the markings on the backsides of both of my hands

Were once carved into the details of two feet upon the sand
Were initially traced onto the surfacing of sand by my two feet

We remain
We continue to exist

We are remembered
We are actively not forgotten

And all the things we love
And everything that is dear to us

Will be washed away in the rain
Will eventually dissolve away from us

We remain
Yet we still endure